4.0
Nikolai Gogol
ByPublisher Description
Nikolai Gogol was the most idiosyncratic of the great Russian novelists of the 19th century and lived a tragically short life which was as chaotic as the lives of the characters he created.
This biography begins with Gogol's death and ends with his birth, an inverted structure typical of both Gogol and Nabokov. The biographer proceeds to establish the relationship between Gogol and his novels, especially with regard to "nose-consciousness", a peculiar feature of Russian life and letters, which finds its apotheosis in Gogol's own life and prose. There are more expressions and proverbs concerning the nose in Russian than in any other language in the world. Nabokov's style in this biography is comic, but as always leads to serious issues—in this case, an appreciation of the distinctive "sense of the physical" inherent in Gogol's work. Nabokov describes how Gogol's life and literature mingled, and explains the structure and style of Gogol's prose in terms of the novelist's life.Download the free Fable app
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities17 Reviews
4.0
haeri
Created 3 months agoShare
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xaxabel
Created 4 months agoShare
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“I bought this to gain a clearer understanding of Gogol, hoping that Nabokov's ruthlessly technical style would be more enjoyable as a case study compared to his novels, but it was not, and although I did really enjoy his dissection of Gogol, there is something that I just do not enjoy about Nabokov's writing style, fiction or nonfiction, though, at the end of the day, this is still a very valuable analysis of a very beloved author.”
Ange19
Created almost 2 years agoShare
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ceiznek
Created over 2 years agoShare
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sarahmaemayo
Created about 3 years agoShare
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About Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), one of the 20th century's greatest writers in both Russian and English, was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and spent his adult life in Germany, France, the United States, and Switzerland. In addition to his literary work, he was a passionate lepidopterist and chess player. His books include Lolita, Pale Fire, The Real Light of Sebastian Knight, Laughter in the Dark, and many more.
Other books by Vladimir Nabokov
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